I just realized ztex has recently released a new board based on the Xilinx Artix 7 XC7A200T fpga, available here:
https://shop.ztex.de/product_info.php?products_id=102&language=enThey come with an open source SDK:
https://www.ztex.de/firmware-kit/ although that's for general use, not a ready to use miner.
I haven't seen anything in this forum about the series 2 of ztex, only the older series 1, which had an open source miner:
https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=40047 but that stopped around 2013 it seems. Also it looks like bfgminer supports only series 1 of these boards.
I wonder if anyone is using these new boards, or any fpga for mining these days, maybe as a home/quiet miner for example.
Looking at this open source fpga bitcoin miner repo it looks like there hasn't been much done in about a decade:
https://github.com/progranism/Open-Source-FPGA-Bitcoin-MinerIs all the mining now done exclusively with ASICs? even the USB stick miners use an ASIC.
I wonder if there's any current FPGA device that can be used for mining today, ideally open source. Probably it won't be as efficient as the latest ASIC, but an fpga has other advantages to it, like being able to be updated over time, and use the board for other purposes as well.
There is but the firmware your referring to though is called bitstreams ,nothing I've seen is open source these days, a lot of these newer FPGA's are owned by a few select individuals that own said bitstreams they generally wont share bitstreams until they sell the whole lot of FPGA's at end of life. I personally know people that own 60%+ of total supply of certain fpga's with very elaborate setups such as chip etching liquid cooling. Long story short they dont sell the bitstreams or the FPGA's, they might get the bitstream made for "free" for a hefty %10 dev fee on a major acquisition.
There's alternatives though , you can lease your FPGA out on Vast.ai for top dollar(if you can even set it up in the firstplace) , its more rewarding then any mining prospect as these guys use your fpga to develop said bitstream before buying a few shelves full of clusters of limited makes.
using a bitstream is "simple" according to this
Bitstream Encryption wiki they provide.
I must say I don't know how useful 256 MByte DDR3 SDRAM on this particular make is though for memory intensive mining. But I don't know a lot about them and decided to steer clear of the complexities behind them.
